Object Type: Photographs

Creation Place: North America, United States

Medium and Support: Archival inkjet print on paper

Credit Line: Carleton College Art Collection

Accession Number: 2005.027.02

"It was my challenge to evoke the experience of Twigonometry’s constantly transforming, fleeting presence. I am intrigued by the beauty of the line and the infinite number of intriguing shapes and spaces created by overlapping forms."

Meg Ojala, photographer and professor of art at St. Olaf College, studied Patrick Dougherty’s Twigonometry intensely over an entire year. Using both digital and medium format cameras, she shot the tangled twigs and nest-like enclosures repeatedly. Twigonometry Triptych celebrates the sculpture through the seasons. The central image, in color, reveals the rich hues and complex interlaced shapes of Twigonometry basking in sunlight. Snow, to the left, highlights the dynamic directional movements orchestrated by the artist with sticks wrapped across the surface of the work. And Rain evokes the subtle, slightly blurry beauty of a landscape sheathed in moisture.

Meg Ojala, a Minnesota native, has taught photography at St. Olaf College for the past 20 years. She earned a B.A. from the University of Minnesota and an M.F.A from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The recipient of the 2005 McKnight Foundation Photography Fellowship, which she also enjoyed in 1987 and 1999, Ojala has also been awarded a Minnesota Arts Board grant. The artist has recently focused her creative efforts close to home, observing and photographing a small island on the Cannon River near her studio in Dundas, Minnesota.